Code TEA: Tea Parties, Go Home! All Politics Is Local

TEA Parties nation-wide have found that calling, writing, and showing up in person in D.C. has the same impact as a hiccup in a hurricane. After turning out thousands of citizens at rallies, overwhelming the Senate phone lines and crashing Congress’ e-mail system, our elected representatives are poised to enact the greatest expansion of government in history. The TEA Parties followed the direction of national organizations and associations. They answered the call, but were sent over the trench-line without an actual plan or support. (See, for example, Somme, Battle of) It is time for the TEA Party movement to turn inward. In the words of the age-old adage, ” All politics is local “.

Stories like the ACORN tapes have massive national legs, yet they do not destroy the local farm team of tax-and-spend big government. Fighting for Liberty and the ability to live the American dream requires getting your hands dirty far closer to home.

For the TEA party and 9-12 groups to become effective, they must evolve again, and this time the Gadsden Flag will be a marker laid down to far more personal targets. People find the mundane of daily life and local news forgettable, yet this is how the TEA party can enact meaningful change.

To end the progression of large intrusive government and the progressive agenda, the TEA party must neuter the left’s farm team. City Council, County Board, Park Districts, and School Boards may not have the flash of State Representatives, State Senators or their federal partners, but, they are, indeed, perhaps more the important .

The progressives and Big Government-types have entrenched themselves into local power bases. They have expanded the role of government from the garbage man to the kindergarten teacher. They are taking us over from within, yet we can push back.

Until the last year, our side has been busy with our personal and professional lives. We have looked past machine politics and the local aspects of our lives. We have ignored the corruption in our hometowns. We have chosen to overlook the police state that has grown. We have chosen to allow the nanny state to encroach on smoking in taverns or trans-fat in our doughnuts, to name just two recent examples. We have allowed an extra $.05 sales tax for “insert public good here” after another, without protest or outrage.

In our slumber, we have allowed our liberties to be encroached. We have allowed the will of the State to be imposed on us. In places like Missouri, we have allowed no more than 30 hardened progressives to dictate the tempo of the debate. (Fortunately, we do know who you are and will be outing you here.) We have allowed this to happen because we have not paid attention to the minor league ball game.

We choose instead to protest in Washington, D.C. We chose to show outrage to the political class that is not listening. They won’t listen; they do not have to . They have showered their districts in pork and bribed us with our own money. They can freely come back home from the Beltway bubble to their local farm team and act like they conquered Gaul.

A local mayor and a rogue’s gallery of other officials will hold a press conference with the Representative or Senator and the lamestream media will re-broadcast their talking points. These local co-conspirators will treat the federal officials as Caesar, yet the arch they march through is a fake. These people have only accomplished one thing; they have retained power. They hold power by controlling the means of political production. They control us by controlling our cities, counties, parks, and schools. They have turned us into a class of serfs begging for scraps from the table that we fill. (That’s actually unfair to serfs. In Medieval times, serfs only had to hand over 1/3 of their income to the feudal lords. Add up federal, state and local tax levies, we may much more than serfs ever paid. So, what does that make us?)

Now is the time for the TEA party to show it’s real colors and longevity. Now it is time for us to stop the rallies and start the process of running for election and holding our current officials directly accountable. Now is the time for the plumber, the electrician, and the Joe Six-pack American to end this madness.

No more will we go quietly into that long night. Now, we must fight. We must take back the system and make our elected officials fear “we the people”. This is the battle our forefathers saw many years ago.

This is the time for the Tea Party to seize the day and make a difference. Which party you decide to run on doesn’t matter. Republican or Democrat matters little, as the national leaders of both have lost touch. What matters is we destroy the go-along-to-get-along farm team. It also matters that we pick a party…the Republicans and Democrats have together gamed the system against third parties. Creating a TEA Party isn’t a serious solution. Leverage your power locally to change your party.

Make a pledge to not vote to tax and spend the people’s money. Make a pledge to quit after “x” amounts of terms in office. The people are waiting for a leader; they are waiting for a Captain. Be that Captain. March to the sound of the guns, and seize the day.

With TEA party people in every position of government, the political class in Washington will listen. They will no longer have the political cover of pork-hungry Mayors doing tricks for the political elite. There will no longer be days of staffers blowing people off to vote for their party line.

A carpet-layer has more experience to lead than any political hack. An insurance man has more ability to look at regulations than a risk-adverse lawyer. A veteran has more understanding of what it takes to support our men and women in harms way.

It is time to break the mold of what looks good to get elected. Now is the time to become involved. Now is the time to hear the sounds of battle and join. The Government teat must be turned off. The system needs to be rebooted.

Help start the process and run for office. The great sleeper that is America has woken up. 2010 is not the end game, neither is 2012. The end game is when we level the playing field and make America once again the land of opportunity.

Fly that Gadsden flag high and fly it proud. But, that isn’t enough. It is time to leave your fields and join the battle. March to the sound of the guns.